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Father and son to be reunited soon

TONY EASTLEY: The plight of Ken Thompson - the Australian man whose child was abducted by his wife - will take another turn later today when it's hoped that ken Thompson will finally get to see his young son after nearly three years. It's been a week since he was told that his son Andrew is alive and well in Amsterdam.

Dutch authorities have told the ABC that extradition proceedings are now under way to have his mother, Melinda Stratton, returned to Australia to face charges of contempt of court.

Europe correspondent Emma Alberici reports from Amsterdam.

EMMA ALBERICI: In most parts of the world when a parent takes their child out of the country without the other parent's consent they are breaking the law. The anomaly is Australia, where Melinda Stratton would not have faced charges had it not been for the fact that she took her son away in the middle of a custody case.

She has been arrested in Amsterdam, wanted in Australia for contempt of the family court. She is also required to bring her son home under the Hague Convention on international child abduction of which Australia is a signatory. But she always maintained that she was protecting her son from sexual abuse at the hands of his father.

KEN THOMPSON: She'd made these allegations to the police. She'd made these allegations to DOCS (Department of Community Services). They'd investigated and they'd said, you know, there is nothing here. There is nothing to support your allegations.

EMMA ALBERICI: Why does a mother go to such lengths to protect her child, to flee the country if the father is not a threat?

KEN THOMPSON: All I know is that the psychiatric report said that there was an underlying mental state that was causing her to form these beliefs. Yeah well I guess...

EMMA ALBERICI: What led her to believe that you were a danger to Andrew?

KEN THOMPSON: Andrew made a few comments to her on the 6th of December 2007 about putting him to bed at night. You know, Melinda would sit beside Andrew whereas I would lie beside Andrew because I just, I wanted him to go to sleep and I thought, you know, he is lying down more chance of him going to sleep and the reality of the matter was most of the times I fell asleep as well.

She just became concerned about the way he expressed that. You know, he said I want you to lie like daddy does and when she asked how that was, he put his hands kind of around his kind of groin area, clasped his hands.

Apparently that is what kind of triggered this process of forming this belief that something inappropriate was happening.

EMMA ALBERICI: Ken Thompson has been cycling across Europe for four months. In that time he has crossed nine countries and clocked up 6,500 kilometres. Now he just wants to take his son home but he has been told that the process will take at least three months.

KEN THOMPSON: You know, I want to see him. I have been looking for him for two and a half years. I have been searching the world for him for two and a half years. So the process now is to give him time to come to accept that his father is here and that his father wants to see him.

There are two psychologists who are working with him and with me and they are talking to him about me, gauging his response and whether or not he is, because we don't know what he has been told, so they need to make sure that he is not going to be traumatised through this process.

EMMA ALBERICI: Dutch prosecutor, Otto Van Der Bijl has confirmed that extradition proceedings are underway to bring Melinda Stratton back to Australia. On what grounds could the judge not grant the extradition?

OTTO VAN DER BIJL: In this case we don't see any, at this point, we don't see any major obstacles to the extradition.

EMMA ALBERICI: Ken Thompson, the former deputy commissioner for the New South Wales Fire Service says he won't return to his job. He wants to devote the rest of his life to helping other parents find their abducted children.

This is Emma Alberici in Amsterdam for AM.

TONY EASTLEY: And there'll be more on that story on tonight's 7:30 Report.

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